VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Dead Rising 2

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Published
by: Capcom
Developed by: Blue Castle Games
Release Date:
September 28, 2010
Available on:
Xbox 360, Playstation 3

BUY THIS GAME HERE

INTRO: Dead
Rising is back, baby! I absolutely loved the first Dead Rising despite
a few setbacks and my main gripe with the game is that I was begging
for a multiplayer mode to drop a pal into my world of mayhem. Luckily
for me, Blue Castle games has stepped up to the plate to deliver a game
that ups the ante, gore and mayhem in every way. Here’s the official
description and a few new features:

Taking place shortly after the first game’s events, DR2 puts you in the
role of a new character, Chuck Greene and takes place in Fortune City
(a city constructed from the remains of Vegas after the last zombie
outbreak).

Chuck is (or was) a famous motorcycle-stuntman who stars in some sort
of sick and twisted Running Man-esque zombie motocross show called
Terror is Reality so he can earn money to buy Zombrex (a temporary cure
the bitten) for his daughter Katey. Some jerk decides to open the door,
releasing hordes of the undead in the streets of Fortune City. Of
course, you get the blame.
You have 72 hours to complete the main story and clear your name. On
top of this you must find Zombrex to keep your daughter alive.
Depending on whether certain conditions are met, you’ll get one of
several endings.

-Combine two items using duct tape to create the ultimate zombie
killing creations such as the Portamower and Paddlesaw, unlocking combo
cards that will help give players an advantage, as well as earn them
Prestige Points.
-New protagonist, Chuck Greene, is just the beginning in a long list of
new characters, new survivors and new vicious psychos that will be
introduced to fans in the new world of Dead Rising.
-The undead are everywhere creating a dynamic and challenging
zombie-killing experience for the player as weapons will be created to
kill massive amounts of zombies at one time.
-Co-op play is introduced to the Dead Rising universe for the first
time, as players can invite their friends to partner up with them at
any time to take on the zombie massacre- tag-team style.

GAMEPLAY:

Please allow me to go ahead and
say it, I loved this game. I still love it, and I’m still playing it,
despite having had it for a few weeks already. If you know me at all
(and dear readers, some of you know me better than I’d like), you know
that I’m a bit ADD with my game-playing. I love to play me some video
games but I’ve usually got so many on my plate and so many other things
to do that it’s hard for me to focus on playing a game for a long
period of time. The last game I remember being so consumed by was
Arkham Asylum, and this is the newest love of my life.

First of all, let me tell you that I played through the entire campaign
both by myself and with someone else and I will be the first to report
that this game is still a blast, although playing it with two players
makes the mayhem SO much more fun. What would you like to know? Well,
this one expands on almost everything the first game had to offer. You
have more inventory slots, you don’t have to take pictures anymore
(sorry, that was annoying), and you can combine stuff you find to make
weapons!

Weapon combining in this game is pretty awesome but can be tricky. You
go to one of several maintenance rooms to combine stuff you have in
your inventory and make a lawnmower attached to a wheelchair, or
flaming boxing gloves. These weapons last longer, deal more damage and
give more prestige points (level up points). This is very satisfying,
but sometimes the system is finicky with what you combine and other
times you really have to lug things a long way to combine them.

The zombies are EVERYWHERE in this game, and you can choose to blow
through them or kill them all. If you try to kill them all, you will
die and believe me, it’s going to happen. They’re easier to take down
than last time, but they will overwhelm you more than once. If there’s
one thing Dead Rising 2 accomplishes, it’s a feverish sense of time
being crucial. Gone is the annoying system of receiving
‘missions’ by a transmission that must go interrupted. Now
they go straight to your message list which can be checked any time. If
you miss a main mission though, it’s game over.

Controls remain relatively the same apart from a few changes. The
annoying lack of ability to move while aiming a gun has now been fixed
to the joy of many.  The AI of other survivors, (another fatal
flaw from Dead Rising 1) has now improved greatly,  (some
might argue that it’s too easy) and you will probably get them back to
the safe house with ease, allowing for less frustration and importantly
more time, which is essential in this game. Getting Katey’s Zombrex can
be tough too but don’t be a fool and buy it for a ton of money like I
did because you’ll almost always come across it in a mission.

Boss “psychopath” fights are with humans (who really are the enemy,
haven’t you seen a Romero movie) who are ridiculously strong and
unbalanced. I had to start my game all over again because of a fight
with a set of twins who just hacked me to pieces several times. They’re
not tricky, they’re really, really hard. You will hit them, run away,
grab health, run all the way back and then hit them again until they
die. One minute you are blazing a gory path through the undead, the
next you are slashing a boss with a broadsword 50 times to do any sort
of damage. As you level up these become less annoying, but boss battles
could definitely have been handled better! Didn’t feel fair to me, I
didn’t feel like I was using a lot of skill.

There’s a ton of stuff I could mention here but I can’t possibly cover
it all. Spend your time in clothing stores, putting on ridiculous
outfits and laugh your ass off during serious cutscenes. Put exploding
dinosaur heads on a zombie and watch it walk around. Mow through
zombies with a wheelchair, knocking one into the seat. Kick zombies
through plate glass windows, the list is endless. This is a game
limited by your creativity, and if you love zombie killin’, I cannot
understand why you wouldn’t have this game.

Ok, now for a few flaws: Do you like loading screens? Do you want them
to be long, frequent and maddeningly pointless? The game loads each
time you go from one section of the mall to the other. Sometimes you
can even see into the area of the mall that is about to be loaded up
and it’s already full of zombies milling about, but the game still
loads. This is unacceptable and can take you right out of the fun.

Also, the fighting can be frustrating. Melee combat is the name of the
game, but there will be times when you’re trying to save a partner
who’s down during a boss fight and when you go to give him food, you
press the ‘pick up’ button to give it to him and end up picking the
plant beside him instead. Super frustrating. Also, guns don’t do much
damage in this game, especially against bosses.

This could be fixed by a future patch, but every single time I played a
co-op game and saved my progress, my partner got booted from the game.
That’s just annoying as well, and really slows things down. There were
also three occasions where I just fell through the floor and could see
the game above me, which left me unplayable and forced to restart from
the last save point. Argh.

Gameplay:
8/10

GRAPHICS:

This game looks pretty good,
although it bears a lot of similarity to the last game which was
released several years ago, this making this one look mostly okay. The
character models look better (no more caveman Frank West), and seeing
all of the zombies on the screen is really quite a visual. 
The blood-soaked clothes and fire effects look really cool too.
Unfortunately though the game’s framerate drops when there’s any
explosions on the screen. Still though, the game isn’t a slouch, just
not the most gorgeous thing you’ve seen.

Graphics:
7.5/10

AUDIO:

The voice acting is solid here,
and there’s a ton of great ambient noise thrown in (especially in the
casinos and with weapon sounds). The music itself is mostly only okay,
although the game is filled with lots of funny elevator music. Anything
else you’ll hear is mostly ‘chugga-wugga’ guitar metal stuff which
sounds fine but is totally forgettable. 

Audio:
8/10

FINAL VERDICT:

I give Blue Castle game a ton
of credit for being able to expand upon and improve a game I already
love. If you’ve got a dedicated friend, jump on this game right now and
I promise, the shortcomings may frustrate you a bit but it’ll be worth
it in the end. The game is just a lot of fun, it’s bloodier and gorier
and is absolutely packed with reasons to replay it (you’ll never be
satisfied with just one run-through. There’s a lot of variety,
monsters, madmen and mayhem to be had here and that’s what I want in my
sandbox games.  This review only touches on a few things that
can be done- your imagination allows for a lot of fun stuff to happen
so get on it!

Final
Score: 8.5/10

BUY THIS GAME HERE